Re-writing Our Narratives

“Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.” – Luis Buñuel

Over glasses of wine with good friends, I felt my newly acquired academic vocabulary sneak into normal catch-up banter. As I shared the details of events that transpired since I last saw my friends, I referred to “my narrative,” “story-telling,” and “memory.” These words permeate each line of my master’s thesis and much of my graduate school studies. Throughout the past year, I have searched for every line of academic literature on memory and the role it plays in defining the story of an individual as well as its cohesive and divisive power within a community and society. It is an academic search, with a personal quest at its heart.

The blurry lines of my thesis refer to the difficult, painful memories that feel hesitant and, at times, unspoken in Rwanda. The individual stories of a past marked by suffering give way to a national narrative for the country. In his most recent book, Phil Clark discusses the idea of “truth-shaping,” which draws on the fluid nature of memories---allowing them to be molded into a cohesive narrative. The idea of blending stories into a narrative brings me to the essence and power of storytelling. What is told? Who tells it? What is kept for oneself or even silenced? What memories are shaped into a new narrative? How does this process take place?

To borrow words from Pierre Janet;

“Memory is an action: essentially it is the action of telling a story.”

While the case study of my thesis considers the Rwandan conflict and subsequent process of healing and rebuilding, the theories of the role of memory, separated from the conflict, transcend into my own life, infusing into my own story. The internal reflection stimulated by the notion of truth-shaping and allowing memories to take a more fluid nature, inspires a yearning to re-write my own stories and critical moments that define how I got to where I am.

What if I could reframe my memories, drawing on the positive, the lessons, the growth, and build upon whatever heartbreak lies within them? It seems that as an individual I could reach a place of deeper healing and, perhaps, create a more positive narrative that would not only impact how I saw the past, but how I could envision the future.

Farewell Manhattan

by Amy Ferguson I’ve lived on the island of Manhattan for eight and a half years. It still amazes me that it’s been that long. You see I was an unlikely New Yorker. When I was younger and I visited here I didn’t have that magical New York City movie moment that so many people have. The moment when the light changes and everything moves in slow motion and you get this epiphany, this “I have to live here” feeling in your bones. That never happened for me. Instead, I reluctantly moved here for a depressingly low paying internship when I was 25. My plan was to stick around for a couple of years, have a quintessential New York experience and then get the hell out. But that’s not what happened. No, somehow when I wasn’t looking this place became my home.

In a few weeks I’ll be leaving Manhattan and moving to Brooklyn. I know it doesn’t sound like much of a move, only about five miles away, and I’m certainly not the first person to make it. But it marks the end of an era for me, the end of my time as a Manhattanite.

The island of Manhattan is relatively small when you think about it. But so much has happened to me in those 23.7 square miles that no matter where I find myself, I find memories. Around every corner, tucked in every neighborhood are places that mean something. Places where things happened to me.

The tiny studio I rented on Carmine with the awkward floor plan and the closet in the kitchen. Or the garden apartment on West 85th with the exposed brick and the to-die-for backyard. The way West 11th Street looked blanketed in white during my first New York snowstorm. The view of Midtown from the Reservoir, still my favorite place to go for a run, where I huffed and puffed through my first ever mile. The cozy candlelit restaurant on Greenwhich Ave where a relationship began. A shady park bench at the corner of Sixth and Bleecker where another one ended.

Everywhere I look I see little snippets of my past. Moments captured. Because in Manhattan your life doesn’t happen here or there, it kind of just happens everywhere.  This entire island was my home.

So I bid you farewell, dear Manhattan. I’ll miss you. But Brooklyn measures in at whopping 81.8 square miles and like any good New Yorker I’m always craving more space.

Daylight

It’s a miraculous thing, what a few extra hours of daylight can do. Last week we finally turned the corner in our saga of wintertime suffering and pushed our clocks ahead. Waking up in the semi-darkness isn’t exactly my cup of tea, but I’d gladly take the darker morning that comes with the time change when it means a lighter finish to the end of the day.

Whether it’s summer or winter, by the time that I need to turn on the lights in my apartment, I’m ready to transition to the dinner-making, movie-watching, tripping-the-light-fantastic-portion of my waking hours. I want to switch on the radio and pour myself a glass of wine and generally distance myself from whatever I’ve been working on. In the wintertime, early sunsets mean that I’m ready for the transition beginning at roughly 4:00 pm. I need to force myself to stay productive for another hour or two until I finally give in to temptation and begin chopping onions and preparing myself a dinner. Now that the days are longer, I can last at my desk until nearly 7:00 pm without even noticing. I’m hoping to fill the extra hours with the more soul-satisfying activities of walks along the harbor and eating ice cream cones on the church steps, but for now I’m just happy to be able to enjoy the extra sunshine, even if it is from my desk.

Spring begins officially tomorrow and while the temperatures haven’t exactly risen in New York, there are daffodil shoots coming up in all of neighbors’ yards. I have high hopes that any day now the Bradford pear trees in our neighborhood will begin their springtime spectacle, decking themselves out in white blossoms and preening against the blue sky. Soon enough, I'll get out there with them.

Snow Fall(ing)

I can count the number of times I’ve seen snow on two gloved hands. It happens in Portland maybe once a year. When it does---or might and, usually, doesn’t---it’s the talk of the town. Schoolteachers make announcements to their classrooms and snow becomes the only topic of polite chatter in the grocery store checkout. “Looks like it’s going to snow, huh?” The day before its arrival we all watch the sky, every one of us an amateur meteorologist. The cloud cover holds the moisture, but too much won’t let in the cold.

Snow isn’t a unique kind of weather in Oregon. It’s just the rarest form of rain. On the way to “snow” are “the in-betweens,” softer circles of slush hitting the windshields on cars headed home. As kids, we’d sit at the windows, hoping against hope for a snow day. “Will it stick?” The flakes fell and dissolved on contact.

The real snow only ever came at night. Eerie golden spotlights lit the bare tree branches, the snowflakes swirling around streetlamps like gnats in the summer. The mornings were nothing short of magic, but it all melted by noon.

My first snow in New England was something different altogether. I was walking to the bus in mid-November when the sky was blue and a few stubborn leaves still clung to the elm trees. Out of nowhere came the tiniest flurries, the flakes not so much falling as suspended. All around me they were appearing and disappearing, like dust shook out from a rug.

The snow was unlike anything I’d ever seen---unexpected but completely certain. It felt like something was only beginning. It felt like falling in love.

Making My Time Worthwhile

I am no stranger to leading a quiet life. My junior year of high school was spent moving between bed and couch after a crippling case of mono left me unable to do much except journal and wish for more sleep. My life from that point on has involved much less “doing” and much more “resting” than it ever had before; I have learned to value quietness and contemplation, in addition to big dreams and grand accomplishments. Still, even after eight years of this new life, I find myself struggling on a regular basis with my own need to be doing something that looks and feels “worthwhile” and “productive” with my quiet time.

Days before Christmas, my husband and I took a romantic trip to the labor and delivery unit of our local hospital to figure out why my then-28-weeks-pregnant self was contracting regularly. Although we never got many conclusive answers, we didn’t have a baby that week either, and eight weeks later I am still pregnant—and still contracting.

These last two months have seen me confined to the couch for a new reason: pregnancy complications. Once again, I’ve found myself spinning through the same old doubts and worries, letting the same anxieties creep back in to my head and my heart.

A week or two ago, I decided to put together a to-do list comprised of productive, worthwhile things that I could do from my resting place on the couch. For a few days, I worked industriously on my list, checking things off and feeling proud.

And then, one day, I was tired. The contractions had kept me up for most of the night before, and I was physically and mentally exhausted. I sleep-walked through the morning, doing little bits of nothing here and there, my sluggish brain unable to keep up with much of anything.

Halfway through the day, I found myself locked in a round of internal self-castigation. Look at you, wasting your whole day, said the nagging voice in the back of my mind. Can’t you do anything that would be worth something?

Suddenly, instead of just feeling overwhelmed and defeated, I found myself rising up against that nagging voice. Isn’t it worth something to care for myself, and for my baby? I found myself asking. Isn’t it worth something to take some time to cherish my body so that it can stay strong and do what it needs to? Isn’t it worth something, sometimes, just to rest?

I have always struggled with this idea—that resting, taking care of myself, can in and of itself be a worthwhile task. That I don’t have to be filling every single quiet hour with efficiency and the kinds of accomplishments that can be crossed off my beloved to-do lists.

That day, I created a note on my computer and wrote these words as a reminder to myself: “I don’t have to be curing cancer in my resting time. I can be doing whatever I need.”

Sometimes, what I need is to be busy, to be getting a lot done. But sometimes, what I need is just to go easy on myself. To give myself a little grace. To let go of all my often-unrealistic expectations and just be.

In a society that values busyness and accomplishment, that can be a difficult pill to swallow. But still, I imagine that if I ever get the art of “simply being” down someday, I will be a better person for it.

Do you struggle with allowing yourself time to rest and rejuvenate?

On Steubenville

Yesterday, in Steubenville, Ohio, two teenagers were found guilty of rape.  Two sixteen-year-olds were tried in juvenile court for the rape of another sixteen-year-old last summer. It’s a sordid case that’s captivated many because of the way it came to light through social media and YouTube. The case has inspired conversations about many things including issues of consent, acceptable Internet use, potential conspiracies, and the power held by high school football players in Steubenville. The last part is probably hard for some people to understand, particularly those who aren’t familiar with the fervor that surrounds high school football in some parts of the country. I grew up directly across the Ohio River from Steubenville, Ohio, and went to an equally football-crazed high school in Wellsburg, West Virginia. When I went off to college and told people stories about the role football played in my high school and community, I was always rewarded with agape mouths and disbelief.

We had pep rallies every Friday of football season, regardless of opponent or game importance. These pep rallies took forty-five minutes, and happened during the instructional day, the last forty-five minutes before dismissal. However, their impact was greater than that as both the players and the members of the marching band were dismissed from classes even sooner, in order to prepare. Before we were dismissed from our classes to go to the rallies, the band marched through the school’s hallways as a signal that it was almost time, effectively ending class. The routine was always the same, the coach spoke, the cheerleaders cheered, the dance team danced, the band played, the players marched in (hand-in-hand and in matching ties, slacks, and blazers), and the football captains made “speeches,” which were the same every week, a simple “Beat [name of that week’s opponent].” The coach spoke again. The crowd cheered. We were dismissed.

The rallies weren’t mandatory, but virtually everyone went. Sometimes I chose to go to the alternate activity, a study hall, to join a handful of other students, primarily Jehovah’s Witnesses (who considered the rallies blasphemous). I didn’t have any meaningful reason as to why I skipped some of the rallies, other than that on some days I wasn’t in the mood for all the pageantry and noise. I wish I could say it was some sort of principled stand, but it was more apathy than anything, and sometimes simply the nerdy wish to get some homework done before the weekend.

I remember one football Friday in particular when we had a two-hour delay because of snow, yet we still had our pep rally. This meant that classes that day were, if memory serves, about 23 minutes long. I knew that was insane then, but as a teacher now, it feels really, really insane. Yet none of my teachers seemed to notice or mind.

When I was in tenth grade, sometime in the first couple weeks of school, the football coach (who had been my ninth grade health teacher), came into my study hall, and said, “Nora, you’re coming with me.” I grabbed my stuff and followed Coach. He explained that he wanted me to work with him in his office during that study hall period and knew I would do a good job. I was a pretty cynical sophomore, but I felt honored in spite of myself. Coach was as big a celebrity as our county had. For the next three years I spent my study halls at a table adjacent to Coach’s office, doing a mix of my homework and his errands. I don’t think the school’s budget allocated money for him to have an administrative assistant, so he simply lined up students (all girls, in my memory) each period of the day to be there should he need help with anything clerical. I didn’t really mind because I gained a quieter place to study and his errands allowed me to stretch my legs and sometimes chat with friends I saw in the halls. Now, whenever I wish I had someone to help me make photocopies of tests, or put up a bulletin board, I realize that Coach’s influence meant that he could command certain benefits no other teacher could.

Our football team was very good, and often a contender for the West Virginia state championship, just like Steubenville’s is a perennial contender for Ohio's.  The stadium was and is huge, and it was often a ton of fun to go to the games. Everyone from town was there, and it was festive and communal and often exciting. Places shut down on Friday nights, and the biggest radio station in the area played all of the games. I liked hearing my friends in the marching band play. Something about being at the games with my friends, bundled up, cheering, and drinking hot chocolate, felt quintessentially wholesome and American.

Of course, at a macro level, very little of it was actually wholesome. The football program took resources away from other sports and other educational programs. The players were treated as heroes, which often led to disappointment for them when high school was over, not to mention bad behavior during high school spurred on by their lionization. The culture of the school was a social pyramid with the players and cheerleaders on the top, with little room in the social stratosphere for the appreciation of those with non-athletic talents. But when the team was winning, we were all in something together, and people were willing to forget the other stuff for that fleeting feeling.

Well, for Steubenville, that fleeting feeling has been eclipsed by a horrifying story. It’s a dark mark on a grey landscape. In the Weirton-Steubenville metro area, the steel mills have all shut down, and the unemployment rate has gone up in the last two years when it’s gone down elsewhere in the country.  The average household income hovers right around 35k a year. High school football, for many, has long been the bright spot on that grey landscape, but now the whole country knows that football simply can’t be its savior.

XXVIII. Normandie

Toward the end of my stay that August, Clémence starts running with me on my loops around the Norman countryside. She can only make it through the warm-up lap, a slow jog around the apple orchard behind the house, and is absolutely exhausted by the end of the ten minutes. She gasps for air and holds her skinny knees for support as we slow to a walk.

As tall, thin women, on first glance Clémence and I seem like we are built similarly, but our bodies are in fact drastically different. Hers is skin and bones with a layer of soft flesh in between---pretty typical for a French high school girl whose exercise is generally limited to whatever walking she happens to do that day and whose diet includes a steadily growing nicotine addiction. I run miles every day and can easily inhale plates of pasta in a single sitting before cross country meets.

Not as sexy, maybe. But as I flex my legs, feel the muscles in my stomach under my hand, I decide I’d rather be hard than soft.

What it sounds like

I didn’t notice how quiet winter was until spring came along. Last night, I fell asleep to birds chirping, and this morning, I woke up to more of the same. Since the frenzy of our wedding came and went in October, a funny sort of quiet has settled over our lives. It is the quiet of two quiet people smiling at each other over steaming cups of tea. It is the quiet of a sleepy dog curled up in a pool of light beneath the window and the quiet of a corner apartment at the end of the street.

It is the quiet of working hard, mostly, or of searching and watching and waiting for work. You can count on the gentle clacking of keyboard keys and the clicking of mice at any point during the daylight hours. Sometimes the hum of the dishwasher or the rumble of the dryer kicks in with a sort of baseline, offering signs of domesticity.

It is the quiet of staying in on Saturday nights for any number of reasons, the foremost of which is that we like each other’s quiet company. It is the quiet of a few plants nearly dying every few weeks and then graciously coming back to life when I remember to water them. Much to my surprise, a certain hand-me-down orchid has been quietly sprouting tendrils right and left despite my careful neglect.

It’s the sort of quiet I’ve always wished for, and it’s even more lovely than I’d imagined. I grew up in a tiny, noisy house where the TV was always on and voices were always raised. I wanted nothing more than to shut out the constant tumult of lives lived stubbornly, passionately, and loudly, but the sounds always seeped in through the crack under my bedroom door and boomeranged off the walls. I hoped very much that one day, I would trade in all that noise for a quiet place to read and rest, to love and be loved. I might have even been convinced, until last weekend, that keeping quiet is the surest path to a life well lived.

But when we arrived in Baltimore last weekend for the wedding of friends, I was bowled over by the raucous, brilliant sound of joy. The singing and dancing and stomping and toasting and clapping and whooping and laughing kicked off on Friday night and didn’t stop until the lively mass of revelers reluctantly dispersed toward sundown on Sunday. I may or may not have enjoyed the expert plucking of both harp and ukulele strings in the very same weekend. And I can’t say I’ve ever witnessed so many blessings shouted from the tops of tables and chairs and anything else that would help the sound carry. I was exhausted as we drove away, but I left with a full heart and a certainty that love can, and should, be lived loudly too.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Hi Sibyl, I was at brunch the other morning with some friends and my husband and our 4-year old daughter. When we got up to leave the restaurant, there was a woman seated at a table with her friends who had no hair, eyebrows, or eyelashes. My daughter proceeded to laugh (I don't think in a mocking way---just surprised), and yell "Look, Mom! She's not real! She's not real!"

My solution was to hurriedly pick her up and carry her out of the restaurant (as she was making a beeline towards this woman's table--perhaps a better verb than "pick her up" would be "tackle her"), explaining that the woman was real and that she just looks different and pointing and laughing like that can be really hurtful. I was also mortified, and didn't know whether to address the woman and apologize or just pretend like my daughter was talking about something else or to just abandon her at the restaurant and pretend like she wasn't mine.

I know I could have handled it better, but I don't know how. What's your advice for these types of situations that are definitely teaching moments, but where the teaching happens at the potential embarrassment of someone else?

Thanks!

Abashed Mommy

Dear Abashed Mommy,

First of all, I understand your reaction and love that you still want to do even better.  Let’s break down why you were so mortified.  The honesty of children can be adorable, but not when it is public, culturally inappropriate, and has an implied power imbalance, like the situation you wrote in about.  But you know what?  It’s not just kids that say seemingly-ignorant things to perfect strangers—adults do this all the time, too, so it is great that you are the kind of person trying to navigate such situations with consciousness.

My family is multicultural, and not a week goes by that some nice, well-meaning person, usually from the race that holds the most power and privilege in our society, says some stupid racist bullshit to one of us.  They are not racists, but, speaking from their own ignorance, social awkwardness, and unconscious internalized racism, my husband is jokingly called a token minority, I am assumed to be the nanny, and our child is considered "exotic" for having brown skin and a big blonde afro.

It is exhausting to hold all these projections, and though I usually find a way to forgive the perpetrator of these (and many more) awkward statements, I really wish someone would, in the moment, acknowledge that they said something messed up and that they still have some work to do on themselves.  But then I think, how could they, if it has never been modeled for them?  They are like little children who have never been taught to handle faux pas in a graceful way.

I think we can change this, starting with our own children.  In the situation you wrote in about, you and your daughter, who assumedly have all your hair, are in a position of privilege in regards to the woman with alopecia.  You have the expected, preferred amount of hair on your body, she does not, and it's not because of a fashion statement.

Therefore, it could have been a powerful statement to your daughter, and to the woman without hair, if you had been able to manage your own shame in the moment and, in front of everyone, say to your girl, "Honey, I know you are surprised to see someone that looks differently from you.  You didn't mean anything by it, but that woman is a person, just like you, and calling her ‘not real’ could have hurt her feelings.  Now that I know that you have never seen a person like her before, I’ll teach you all about it when we get home.”

Then you take your cues from the other woman.  Is she pointedly ignoring this conversation?  Then just smile apologetically at her and leave, as it’s clear she doesn’t want to interact.  However, if she is paying attention to what you’re saying to your daughter, address her, “I’m sorry if we surprised you in the middle of your brunch.  My daughter is still learning about people who look differently from her, and I’m doing my best to teach her.  Enjoy your meal!”  Then go on your way to answer the myriad questions your daughter is bound to have outside the woman’s earshot.

I know that this approach seems like it will be awkward.  However, it’s already awkward, for all of you, so you may as well name that, and approach it head-on.  Through doing this, you’ll be showing your daughter that mistakes happen, and it’s best to stay calm about them but admit them, apologizing but then moving on.  She can then use this experience whenever she makes a well-meaning but still offensive social faux pas, in any arena.

Which is going to happen.  There is no way to avoid, sometimes, putting our foot in our mouths, in ways that offend due to differences in ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, politics, age, size, or health.  That is part of being human in a diverse society.  However, if we can start recognizing power and privilege in even the most innocuous environments—like Sunday brunch—and doing so publicly, perhaps our kids will grow up in a more self-aware society, seeking to make changes that start within.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here. 

What Are You Reading (Offline, That Is)?

Erin Van Genderen is a writer and editor currently based in west Texas, but now that she married into the military she anticipates moving soon. This thrills her, as she grew up in the same place as her great-grandfather was born and has an itch to see the world. Erin posts daily about food, travel, books and simple living at Little Dutch Wife. I was probably too young to be reading Seventeen magazine.

I usually had enough discipline to finish my homework before sneaking into the magazines to read about periods, boyfriends, makeup, sex. I got a thrill from reading Seventeen, although it wasn’t so much about the content as it was the potential contraband nature of the publication itself. I credit much of my knowledge today about proper eyebrow plucking technique to those early days — nothing more risqué than that stuck with me.

And yet the best thing I ever found in Seventeen was a list of “25 Books to Read Before You’re 25”, compiled by then-First Lady Laura Bush for readers surely more interested in how to call a boy than how to read Dostoyevsky.

I ripped the pages from the magazine and later taped them to my bedroom door, where they remain today.

Two withered, sun-faded pages, held up by a few waxy strips of tape. I’m still a little short of twenty-five years and a few books short of finishing the list, but the ones I have read have colored my life in ways unimaginable to the twelve-year-old in the library.

Or perhaps it wasn’t the books, per se, that shaped my experience. Rather, they are the mementos that---with a cover image, a remarkable phrase remembered, a certain tear on the dust jacket---bring to mind a certain point in time. A personal library is a museum of sorts. Not one of old books, but one of places, people, events represented by those old books. What was I reading when I fell in love for the first time? What was I reading when I first traveled abroad?

Remembrances of those times are augmented by the books that got me through it all, those familiar pages like a friend. It’s often uncanny how the subject matter paralleled my own journey---but again, I wonder if it was my choosing the book or the book’s choosing me.

Here are five of my favorite books from that list:

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya This novel is mystical, fantastic, and was for me an entry into Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ world of magic realism. Anaya writes of dusky desert towns, awash in witchcraft and religion, the horizon flecked with saguaros and the silence punctuated by coyote yips. It is a rich read.

My Antonia by Willa Cather Bohemian immigrants, Nebraskan farmland, unrequited love and cultural differences; My Antonia was my grown-up version of Little House on the Prairie. As much as I loved Laura Ingalls as a girl, Cather didn’t have to dull the blade of settlers’ hardships to make it appropriate for a younger audience. Her descriptions of sod houses and plowing vast fields of flax are just as authentic as Ingalls’, but only more real.

It’s hard to get into the book without imagining yourself on the prairie with far-away horizon lines and nothing but gently undulating wheat in the wind, the sky so very blue. A dose of this book is my prescription for the cramped, too-much-city feeling that usually hits around summer.

The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty Welty’s characters are so perfectly Southern that, at times, they seem like caricature, but I, being from the South, know that her words are true. Not all of us are dapper gentry or welfare queens, but then again some of us are.

It isn’t all joke, though. Welty’s father-daughter relationship is heart-rending, and struck a sad chord in me when I was preparing to cleave from my family and start my own home. The worst time I read it, I had to fight back tears in the reading room, the quietest place in the library and privy to each and every sniffle. The best time I read it was the first time. 

The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles This was one of the first books in which I was continually struck by the author’s brilliance and intention, one in which I took notes about storytelling from his raw-but-humorous perspective. The title hints at scandalous rendezvous, but Fowles’ genius is that he never quite gets around to it, encouraging the reader to roar through the pages hoping for a glimpse of a petticoat or the officer’s pressed uniform, consequently, not so neat.

I read it while, incidentally, falling in love with a would-be American Lieutenant who would later become my husband.

The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham I was lonely when I read this book, and so the loneliness of a WWI veteran’s trauma resonated with me. The novel’s setting is a perfectly rumpled version of Europe, with a short stint in both twentieth-century America and the wasteland-cum-spiritual haven of India. Maugham traces a man’s journey to enlightenment, but only as reached through detachment and self-destruction for most of the characters involved.

Sophie’s Choice by William Styron This was a book that I first read when I was much too young. My lifelong (and perhaps morbid) attraction to Holocaust literature was stunted by my encounter with Styron, but after forgetting about the book for a few years I was able to read it again with an entirely fresh perspective. It has become one of my favorite books of all time.

Styron’s style, his characters---so rough, flesh-and-blood on the page with their neuroses and desires---tell a story of danger and history. The main character is consumed by his youthful yearning for a woman so marred by tragedy that he can’t escape her demise. It is passionate, incredible, harrowing, and should be read all at once.

Prop Up

A lot of hay has been made this week in reaction to the release of Sheryl Sandberg’s new book, “Lean In.”  As appears to be the case whenever any notable woman tries to impart a few kernels from her experience, Ms. Sandberg has been met with a range of zealous responses---from impassioned support to bitter resentment.  As these things go, water coolers everywhere have been trembling with activity and public focus has turned once again to the struggle of women to advance educationally and professionally in stride with men.  Inevitably, the word “feminist” enters the picture (at times, spat out like so much epithet) and questions abound as to whether the Facebook COO should be identified as such and whether she is the appropriate person to take up this mantle. Let me be perfectly clear: Sheryl Sandberg is a feminist.  I am a feminist and chances are, if you are reading this, SO ARE YOU.  According to Merriam-Webster:

Definition of FEMINISM

1

: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

2

: organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

In fact, we might be hard pressed to locate any person willing to go on record denying her feminist credentials based on the actual definition.  Imagine even Melissa Mayer, (I discuss her role in this conversation in a previous piece) with cameras rolling saying, “No, I don’t believe that women should have political, economic and social equality with men.”  And yet, when presented with the “feminist” moniker, in her interview for the film, Makers, she immediately rejected it as something toxic that didn’t apply to her and to which she couldn’t relate.  And she is not alone.

According to a Time/CNN poll conducted in 2009, only 24% of American women self-identified as “feminist” and only 12% considered being called a feminist a compliment.  Meanwhile, 82% of the women polled said their overall status was improved relative to 25 years ago and 69% had a sense that the women’s movement, in particular, had directly improved their lives.  Despite this, less than half the women believed that there remains a strong need for the women’s movement.  It would seem that many women understand the concrete ways in which the advocacy of “feminists” has created meaningful and positive change in their lives and simultaneously consider “feminist” a dirty word.  They also aren’t clear as to whether the movement is pertinent today.  What’s going on here?

My sense is that it is a confluence of factors. Conservatives have done an excellent job portraying feminism as something radioactive.  Women are still expected to subscribe to traditional roles and any deviance from the placid maintenance of home and family is seen as damaging to the fabric of society and even the well-being of children. Even with more subtle messages about returning America to its “former promise,” they describe a collective yearning for a tranquil era-gone-by, one in which women, people of color and “others” did not have a place at the table.

Women, themselves, appear to have internalized the notion that there is some archaic version of feminism that has 1) ruined the label for modern women and 2) might not even be necessary anymore.  Could it really be that our generation believes the problem is solved?  And why don’t we recognize how we got here or the work still to be done?  To decide that we no longer need people safeguarding the progress of women in this society is like a diabetic thinking that because she now takes insulin and her blood sugar is stable, PROBLEM SOLVED.  Somebody has to keep manufacturing that insulin, testing it, packaging it, selling it and you have to keep taking it.  Institutional inequality and gender bias still exist and still require the vigilance of activists on both a macro and micro scale. 

Sheryl Sandberg, then, is perhaps the perfect torch-bearer for the new movement.  She is a woman who has had phenomenal success and achieved impressive accomplishments akin to any and all male peers.  She has done this with many fewer barriers than the women who have come before her, but grants that the system remains stacked against her and conveys how conscious she has had to be along the way to claim her status.  She is receiving flak from every direction, including a most refined criticism that her message is only relevant for women of a certain social class.  I actually love this---the fact that there is an entire category of women with privilege to whom she might be speaking, is, in itself, a huge enhancement.  I also think it is false---she is specifically interested in shoring up women at all levels of the workforce (as well as domestically) and much of what she promotes requires more of an internal shift than access to actual resources.  Her ideas don’t solve the whole problem or even many of the problems, but they are a fine place to start.

I believe that with a message to women already in positions of power about reaching out to peers and subordinates still striving, Ms. Sandberg reminds us all that incorporating more traditionally “female” qualities, such as being supportive vs. cut-throat, lifts up everyone of any stratus.  Her ideas about women owning their authority, taking appropriate credit, keeping the pedal to the metal in their career trajectory and demanding better support at home and at work during the child-bearing years is at least 40 years old and still fresh as a daisy.  When a woman who has attended the finest institutions and flourished in the most demanding jobs stands on her pedestal, leans into the microphone and tells us we have a ways to go, we had better listen.

Lessons from My Dad

In 1950-something in Alabama, my grandmother gave birth to her second child.  Exactly thirty years and three months later in a town in Tennessee, that son, now grown and married, became a father to the most adorable baby ever born: Me.  This week is my dad’s birthday, and as I can think of only one other person (that would be my mom) who has helped me ‘Make My Way’ as much as he has, it seemed appropriate to dedicate this column to some lessons he taught me.

Ask Questions.  My dad is a scientist, so it’s probably no surprise that he encouraged questions.  Of course he also encouraged me to find the answers myself, like when I got a flat tire the first time and he suggested I read my car manual to learn how to fix it.  My dad taught me that knowing how things work was the key to fixing them.  As a kid I dissected telephones, radios, and once a camera---I think, all with my dad's permission. Our house always had a dictionary, at least one set of encyclopedias, and for many years was also home to Mona---a life size paper cut-out showing the bone and muscle systems of the human body.  Mona hung on our living room wall. It may seem odd, but Mona was just a part of the bigger picture. Education and knowledge were always prized.  In college when I finally declared my major as Art History, my dad never asked what I thought I was going to do with my degree or what the ‘real world’ applications might be. I could have studied business or communications or something else that might be more marketable, but I grew up believing that knowledge was the end goal, not a job title, so I chose to spend four years studying something I enjoyed and found interesting.  He never questioned it, and I never regretted it. Knowledge for Knowledge’s sake, my dad taught me that.

Carry an extra $20.  Growing up, if I was going out with friends to a movie or the mall, my dad always made sure I had a little more cash than what I thought I would need.  Just take it, just in case, he would say. You never know when you’re going to need $20. There were bigger financial lessons, but I think most of those stuck better on my little sister, at least so far, there’s still time for me. The other lesson in the $20 though is generosity. As an adult, there have been times I’ve gone to my parents to borrow money. It’s not a particularly grown-up thing to do, and if they had a different attitude about it I might be a little ashamed.  But I’m not, because we’re all here to help each other. Someday I might have a little extra in the bank and lend it to someone else who needs a hand, and when I do, I’ll adopt my father’s attitude: I have it, you need it, it’s fine. Both of my parents are generous with their time and their money. They give to charity and to causes they believe in. That spirit is the reason my sister and donate to NPR, just like our dad.

Have Fun. My dad used to toss me into the air when I was a toddler. Apparently it was great fun; scared the daylights out of my mom though. He’s the person I probably get my wit and sense of humor from. Both of my parents are hilarious, but my dad’s humor is more of a smart biting wit, like mine, while my mother’s is a gentler, kinder joke. He also has a loud laugh. Something I’m sure I picked up along the way. We’re not the folks who will chuckle quietly; we’re more of the L-O-L type. Beyond laughing, my dad taught me to have fun and do things that are interesting to me. Whether in work or at home, there’s no point in being bored. That’s a lesson that has influenced my adult life in profound ways and lead to great joy. I don’t particularly care what my job title is or if I have a fancy office. My life is what matters, as is my joy. If I’m having fun, then great, but if I’m not, then it’s time to move on, my dad taught me that.

Try New Things.  When I was about 9 or 10 my family went to Disney World. At an evening dinner my dad asked if I wanted to try his dinner, I asked what it was and after hearing a bland answer (Pasta), took a bite. But it didn't taste like normal pasta, so I asked again. Pasta with Calamari my dad told me. When kid-me finally figured out that calamari was a fancy word for squid, I was less than thrilled. But I tried it. And I'm still telling the story 20 years later. New experiences lead to great stories. My dad is a great story teller, even if he's telling embarrassing stories about me (like the time I tried to crawl through a rocking chair and got stuck), you can't help but listen and laugh along. Sometimes you have to lean in and go for it without knowing what the outcome will be. Even if its totally gross, chances are you'll still have a story to tell.

Take Care of those Around You. My dad is kind of a rock. He takes care of everyone in our family. When I came back from Bangladesh suddenly, and barely knew which way was up after 48+hrs of travel, I went home to my parent’s house. Both my parents gave me big hugs while I cried, my dad then gave me some chocolate and poured my wine into a plastic glass because I was afraid I’d “drop it and then step on the glass shards and die, because that’s the kind of day I’ve been having”. In a dramatic moment like that, it’s the little things, like wine in a plastic glass, that start to make it ok. My dad may be the most responsible person I know. Whether he’s answering questions about a weird sound someone’s car is making or doing my grandmother’s taxes, he's always a rock. I aspire to be that solid, where other’s know without question that they can count on me and I’ll step up without pause, just like my dad. 

There are many more lessons: Don’t ever decide what you want to be when you grow up; be open to change; create things; never stop learning; you can do anything you want if you set your mind to it, and more.  I could never write them all out.  So I’ll close by saying happy birthday to the guy who gave me my first stereo, let me stay up past my bedtime as long as I was reading, and, as he walked me down the aisle on my wedding day, said ‘Take your time. We’ve got all the time in the world’.

Love you, Kid 1

Lessons from a Big Box Hotel...

Dearest Clara,

On this recent trip to Mexico, our last few days were spent in what I tend to call "big box hotels".  Big, behemoth structures on the beach that cater to hundreds---if not thousands---of sun-seekers at a time.  Some people love them, but I typically don't.  It's just not my style.  I prefer something quieter, something less engineered to be a not-quite-right replica of home.  But after one time in Tunisia where, after a desert adventure that nearly went awry, I paid the ludicrous day entry fee for the luxury of a clean shower and an afternoon spent next to a beautiful pool with a lemonade, I realized that I needed to change my approach to these hotels.  They are still not my favorites that I seek out, but life will bring you to them in some form or other.  Maybe you have a wedding to attend, maybe you have points to use up, or maybe there is a family vacation.  Or maybe you find yourself far away from home, and like in Tunisia, it happens to be the best place to cure homesickness.  In any case, here are a few things I keep in mind to make sure I have just as good a time:

• Manage your expectations: Big box hotels are not quaint, and often times, but not always, they are not particularly personal.  Don't look for those qualities here as you won't find them.  You can likely guess well what will or won't be there, and what might or might not happen from a service or food or entertainment perspective.  Manage your expectations accordingly---pleasant surprise is always a better feeling than unprepared disappointment.
• Play to the hotel's strengths: While a larger size might prevent the hotel from doing certain things, it does enable them to do other things well.  Maybe they organize activities of some sort, maybe they have a grocery store on the property. . . Any big hotel has some things that they are good at---seek those things out and make them a priority for your time.
• Make a smaller world for yourself on the big property: Carve out a small corner for yourself where you can find one.  You'll find that no matter the size of a hotel, there is always a terrace or a part of the garden or the library corner that largely goes unnoticed by all the countless other patrons.  Make those spaces of calm your own.
• Claim your chair early: If there is one thing larger hotels do well, it's usually the beach and pool scene.  But everybody knows that.  It's worth getting up a little bit earlier to stake your claim on the best chairs with the gorgeous views and a bit of fruit or coffee.  Enjoy the cooler morning view or breeze on your chair, and as things get crowded stake your claim while you leave to have a late breakfast.  If you have breakfast first, you will always have second tier beach seating.
• Pack books: Several of them---when the world outside with all the people and hustle and bustle becomes too much, you can create your own world in the pages you choose to bring.  I like to bring books that are particular to the destination---while a big box hotel doesn't lend itself to leaving the property easily, you can still continue to learn about it through books.
• Find ways to eat off the property: A break in routine is always a good thing, especially when hotels are bigger or more generic.  Your taste buds and waistline will thank you.
• When in doubt, look out at the ocean: Big box hotels are often amongst other big box hotels and the sight can be overwhelming.  So many stories, so many people, and it makes you wonder how different it all must have looked when the coastline was bare.  When all this development feels too much, just look out in front of you rather than the world behind you.  The ocean and the horizon will always give you a sense of infinite possibility.

All my love,

Mom

My Grown-Up Desk

I remember visiting my Great Aunt Ann when I was about 7 or 8. At that time she lived in an apartment in a house in Martha’s Vineyard. During the summers, when the rent was higher, she would find tenants to rent part of the space, which was always an adventure. She had a couch covered in patchwork denim which I think was where her art therapy clients were supposed to sit, although I don’t think such clients actually existed. She was very whimsical and would swim every day and complained about her bad back and drove a really old Volvo with a lot of sand in it. Then, as now, she seemed to live like a charming cat, pulling things from thin air, acting according to her own whims. One of the best things was walking in the dark warm air at night to get ice cream cones. But I think the really best thing was her desk. A slanted artist’s desk lit by a bending lamp, and on it an entire set of colored pencils sharpened and waiting. It seemed so magical and inviting and sophisticated.

When I was a kid, there were certain things that I knew I wanted to have or be when I grew up. And then along the way I forgot about those intentions, or maybe not forgot but ingested them entirely. Because sometimes they show up here in my adult life, as if they were a point on the map that I had been walking toward without remembering why.

Today I looked down at my desk (built by Brian), lit by a bending lamp (impulse buy from a yard sale in Maine), with a couple of colored pencils and a pile of paper on top, and thought, here it is: my Great Aunt Ann’s desk—my 7-year-old idea of what being a grown-up artist looks like.

I'm a Freelancer! (Any Tips?)

It’s been ten days since my very last day at the office. After more than two years spent inside those walls, editing, copy editing and working on tremendously beautiful books, such as Gone Girl and The Art of Fielding, definitely my favorites, I made the decision. It was quite unexpected, yes. But many other projects opened up that seemed interesting, so I secured a few, closed my eyes and jumped out of “office publishing” to try the “home publishing” for a while. Many new plans are on the horizon now for my family, too, I can see them coming true day by day. And so I figured this was a good and brave and stimulating idea—breathing new fresh air and focusing on the unexpected ahead of me. And maybe being more creative on my own! So it’s been ten days. Days in which I feared I could probably feel regret or conflicting emotions—who does such a thing when publishing is going through such times? A steady income wasn’t bad after all. But well, I told myself, focus on the positive thinking! These projects mean new things to work on, things I never had a chance to do before. Plus, I no longer commute between my hometown and Milan, which was stealing off more than three hours a day.

Day 1 at home went well. I decided I deserved a little “vacation” on my own, and sometimes vacation can only mean going out for a walk alone, enjoying every step, noticing all that you never noticed when you walked on the same route a thousand times but your mind was full of the old same worries. So I took pictures of places that felt familiar and foreign at the same time, while walking oddly slowly like a drunk girl after a fun night out. Many memories came alive in my mind, beautiful ones, of two full years in a field I will always love and cherish. What can I do more for it that I wasn’t doing before? I have several ideas in mind, which include translations and maybe doing some writings of my own. We’ll see. For now I just enjoy my new freedom, but also the new responsibilities that are arising. Freelancing isn’t a piece of cake, or so I heard, and this long walk I took in a sunny winter morning was actually the only one in the last ten days.

After that, I have been working a lot (on an Italian language textbook, YAY!) and have been trying to establish new rules for my schedule. I chose the best spot in the apartment, the most luminous one, but still light isn’t enough when you find yourself working after dinner. . . I put the most comfortable chair before my shabby writing-table, and placed a new lamp on it. And I surrounded myself with piles of books—maybe that will inspire me? There are so many of them I still have to read, and this is my top three list, not a random one:

1. The Impressionist, by Hari Kunzru (a great friend gave it to me for Christmas)

1. Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen (oh yes, I still have to read this one! Shame on me…)

1. Girls of Riyadh, by Rajaa Alsanea (very curious about this one, on my shelves for too long now)

If you have any tips on how to face the possible struggles of freelancing, feel free to send your advice! Fingers crossed!

My Celebrity Best Friends, Emma, Jennifer, and Anne

As Lindy West put it best: “Fuckin' Emma Stone. So good at her job and so nice and cute. So funny! So getting to make out with Ryan Gosling that one time. What a dick. JK, I love her. (Dick.)”

The first time I watched Superbad on Netflix around 2008, I remember I was simultaneously underwhelmed and diverted by the sophomoric teen-boy humor of Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, but more than that I remember encountering Emma Stone (as Jonah Hill’s much hotter love interest Jules) and thinking, “Who is that awesome girl who I’ve inexplicably never seen before and who I have an irresistible compulsion to hang out with?”

She was funny. She was charming. She had a deep tomboy voice. She was gorgeous. And yet she also looked like a regular person.

Since Superbad, Stone has pretty much carried all of that currency straight to the bank and general superstardom. And while it’s easy for starlets who enter the Hollywood machine with trace amounts of spunky individuality to get assembly-lined, streamlined, and de-interesting-ized, she’s come through it all remarkably well.

The other day, three years late, I finally watched Easy A, which was Stone’s big breakout leading-lady role. The movie was fun, if a bit uneven, but again, Stone basically made the whole thing. And again, I felt that odd compulsion where I wanted her to be my best friend at the same time that I wanted to be half or one-fifth as cool as her.

The tomboy/best friend/still irrepressibly talented and gorgeous shtick is big in young female Hollywood right now. Jennifer Lawrence is currently riding a wave of adulation with her self-deprecating, down-to-earth manner and her cool-girl vibe. She’s been nominated for two Academy Awards, she just won Best Actress, she’s played fantasy characters like Mystique and Katniss, and she’s starred romantically opposite the likes of Bradley Cooper and Michael Fassbender, and yet we still feel like we kind of know her. Why?

I’m just gonna take a moment to say that I love Emma Stone. I love Jennifer Lawrence. I love Mila Kunis, who has also recently re-launched her cool-girl brand (though I’m kinda like, Ashton Kutcher? Eh.) But I also love Anne Hathaway, who is riding a media wave going in the exact opposite direction, mostly because of what was deemed a disingenuous, cloying Oscar acceptance speech. Why?

Anne Hathaway is gorgeous, but relatable. She’s funny (watch how amazing she is hosting Saturday Night Live). She’s incredibly talented. She’s hard-working. And she really, really seems like a nice person. So sometimes she comes off like that overly bubbly, overly earnest girl at your high school who was always running for and/or organizing things. What’s so bad about that?

To me, it seems like there should be room for admiration and affection for multiple types of Hollywood personalities. You don’t have to like them all. To use an over-used cliché, if these girls were my best friends and we were on Sex and the City, Jennifer would be Samantha and Emma would be Miranda and Anne would be Charlotte, who can be annoying sometimes but we still love her and value her as part of the group.

But this whole anti-Hathaway movement feels incredibly mean-spirited, spiteful, and very, very high school. It feels like resentment of too much success; it feels catty. Anne has become a lightning rod for people’s general, often unfocused dislike of the rich and the successful in Hollywood, a transference for personal problems and shortcomings, a target for some kind of chorus of real-life comments sections, and, as this New Yorker blog points out, an embodiment of the "happy girl" who doesn't know her place. Think about this: how many male actors have engendered a similar reaction when their Oscar speech wasn’t pitch-perfect? I mean, why was Ben Affleck so surprised and emotional that he won an Oscar for Argo—he’s won before! What a phony. Not to mention the fact that he let slip an uncomfortable comment on the “work” he has to put into his marriage to Jennifer Garner. Yet no one’s attacking him.

I’m over it. I’m so over it. Anne Hathaway doesn’t have to be universally liked, the way Stone, Lawrence, Kunis seem to be. But she certainly doesn’t deserve to be universally reviled. When are we going to stop vindictively policing the behavior of women in the public eye—or at the bare minimum, policing members of both gender to the same degree? Why can't we all be friends?

Meet the Local: London

Meet the Local is a new series, designed to uncover the differences (and similarities) in how we think and live in different parts of the world.  In the next few months, I'll be traveling to Zagreb, Sarajevo, Spain, Portugal, Ghana, Morocco, and Scandinavia.  In each place, I'll interview someone who lives locally (although they may have originally come from somewhere else, as you'll see in today's post; I find that to discount people who have immigrated is to deny a core part of a city's makeup, especially in places like London).  I'll ask the same set of questions everywhere.  This week, meet Carleen Macdermid, from London, England:

What do you like about the place you live?

First of all, I love that it’s London, because I’m Australian---I moved here about eleven years ago.  I love how central it is.  I walk everywhere nowadays. I almost never get in the Tube.  It’s a 40 minute walk home, but I’ll still walk, because you see so much more of London.  I’m right by the river.  I’m in the middle of everything.  I love it.

What don’t you like so much?

It’s made me harder as a person. Australians are notoriously chilled out and easy going.  I’ve not become more English because to an Australian it’s very important not to be English but I’ve definitely become a Londoner.  I’m hard.  People get in the way in the Tube.  I’m always in a hurry.  When I first moved here, I would see celebrities all the time and now I just see idiots that are in my way and I don’t like that about myself.

What do you normally eat for breakfast?

I almost never eat breakfast.  I’m terrible at it.  I’m fully aware that it’s the most important meal of the day but I so enjoy my sleep that breakfast gets sacrificed every morning and has done since I was about fourteen.

What do you do for a living?  How important is your career to your sense of self?

I currently don’t really do anything, because I’m in the process of being made redundant.  I did get kids into apprenticeships for four years, and I was a teacher for seven years, and now I’m on the cusp, so if anyone thinks I’ll be useful to them, they’re welcome to contact me.

I worked really hard over the last six months to get that balance back.  For a long time there, my work was absolutely everything, it took all my free time, it took all my focus, and I kind of think if you’re working with young people, that’s important. Now, I like the fact that my focus is more on myself.  A better social life, a better work/life balance.

What do you do for fun?

I was a drama teacher for years, and for a long time I didn’t do any of that at all.  Now, I do improv, I rehearse with groups, and I’m just in the process of trying to write, to attempt for the very first time, stand up comedy.

How often do you see your family?  Tell me what you did the last time you saw them.

I see them very rarely---they’re on the other side of the globe, so the last time I saw them was three and a half years ago, and I helped them pack up and move out of the house I was raised in and move to the other side of the country.  My sister and my niece get here in two weeks, and it’ll be the first time they’ve ever visited me over here.  After that, I’ll be redundant, so I’m going to pop home to see mum and dad, and it will be the first time in three and a half years.

What’s your biggest dream for your life?

To find something that really satisfies me.  I’ve always had jobs that I’ve enjoyed elements of, I liked working with young people, but I’ve never really had anything in my life where I’ve kinda sat there and gone: yeah, I do that, and I’m really happy about it and really proud of it.  So I’m determined to track that down, be it in my work or be it in something creative.  It’s out there, and I’m gonna find it before I get too old.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?  Why?

I would invent a magical place that was similar to London and had the lifestyle and the get up and go but had my parents a lot closer than 24 hours away by airplane, and had some of the warmth of Australia without turning into the awful, shabby parts of Spain where people go and conglomerate and do awful things.

What are you most proud of?

I am most proud of the fact that my job has always contributed to young people.  I spent my entire career in education and training and I can point to literally hundreds and thousands of kids that I’ve helped.  I’ve got young people now who are teachers like I was, and other young people that have really good professions because they did apprenticeships with me, and I’ll always have that to be proud of.

How happy would you say you are?  Why?

I’m gonna go with 85%.  Even at my most unhappy, I never manage to drop below about 65 or 70%, I’m just naturally an upbeat person, but I like the fact that I’m starting to do more for me for the first time in a long time.

In fear of Spring

In late July, as I was photographing a friend's hands clasping pebbles from a Greek beach, I pronounced myself a "summer person." I did so with the awareness that being Greek and being a "summer person" was, practically, a tautology, but I declared myself one with certainty: "Definitely a summer person," I said, and I was off to the water once again.

By late October, as I was pointing my camera up at a tree whose red leaves reminded me of everything I missed about New England autumn, I had changed my mind. "I'm a fall girl," I declared.

Not even for the sake of a writerly analogy can I pretend that by mid-February, as I was trudging through the post-snow slush, I was a full convert to Boston winter. And still, something about the sound of synchronized snow shoveling interrupting the piercing quiet after a heavy snowstorm that resonates with me. Eljiah caught on to how fickle I was with my attachment to seasons and remarked, "You are, apparently, an all-seasons girl. I don't want to hear it. You love summer, and you love fall, and you love winter."

And then there was spring.

I felt it today, that familiar anxiety of spring, as the world was in mid-thaw, snow droplets dripping into gutters. Buds are fighting to burst out of tree branches. The galoshes that felt essential yesterday felt incongruent today. Everyone was drinking iced coffee, even though it was still only 30-something degrees. We were drinking iced coffee because we recognized the kind of undeniable sunlight that inspires, if not requires, iced coffee, even if our fingers were reluctant to crawl out of pockets for long enough to hold on to icy plastic and a straw.

The sound of leaves crunching under boots or of synchronized shoveling or the smell of sunscreen -- those are the associations that have a different effect on me than the advent of spring. It is not that spring lacks the beautiful imagery. Sundresses would be offended if my memory did not celebrate their return, as would lemonade and porches and lemonade on porches. Rather, spring carries a more anxious weight.

I remember the spring when I myself had to thaw. I remember seeing almond blossoms and realizing the depths of my grief.

I remember a spring so full of loss that I did not even realize it happened until it was mid-May and I was sitting on a lawn in three sweaters, sweating next to a picnic basket under the weight of my obliviousness.

I remember another spring so full of questions that I could not yet answer and so full of terror at the uncertainty. I remember the glory of the spring after that when I slowly befriended vulnerability and gently carved out room in the lemonade-on-porches vision for red wine.

I remember a different spring when everything felt distant and remote. I had not had to fight through winter that year; it was another one of those years when I lived in the perpetual summer and darkness of work in conflict zones, whether due to calling a desert my home or the Equator. Perhaps spring felt less of a triumph when I did not have to sit through the short afternoons of a February or the slush of a December Wednesday; perhaps that is why everything felt unattainable that one spring.

Spring catches me by surprise. I can feel fall coming and ease into it. I can taste the crisper breeze, the bluer skies, the pashminas giving way to cardigans giving way to jackets with hoods. Winter sashays in slowly too, with the increasingly frothier beverages, with one neighbor lighting her fireplace and then another and then the whole neighborhood smells of fireplaces and snowflakes. Spring bursts out of trees and emerges from under layers of clothing with a speed that finds me unprepared each time. There is a bird chirping outside my window while the snow melts, and I find myself begging for a bit more time under the heavy covers to reflect, to put the pieces in order, to stave off the grief, uncertainty, loss, or fear of the above, to be ready for spring, just-this-once.

Therein lies my discomfort: There is something disquieting about feeling like your emotional state is out of step with that of your universe. The spring break inspired catalogs and commercials tell me it's almost Denim Shorts Season and my favorite candle store no longer stocks "Leaves" or "Vanilla Hazelnut Doughnut" because the shelves are full of "Sunscreen Mist" instead. Ready as my legs are for the caress of sundresses on bare knees, my heart needs more time to match the collective exhilaration. So allow me to linger here a bit longer, under the weight of a panda hat and a knit scarf and in the company of a foamy chai latte -- hot, strawless. Let me hide a little longer until I am ready to face the blossoms. And, should I ever feel compelled to point a camera at said blossoms and exclaim anything, you will know that it will likely be another declaration of being a girl of the seasons.

Talk to Me

I know that plenty of people talk to their mothers, at best, once a week, or even---and I start to stutter here---every few weeks. Now, I’m not passing any judgments, but this just did not fly with my mom. I remember her informing me years ago, as I was going through, shall we say, an “independent phase,” that she had talked to her mom every single day as an adult.  I thought of this often, on those week nights after a late dinner with my husband, when all I wanted to do was zone out to an awful episode of Gossip Girl. There were nights when Chuck Bass won out, but most nights I picked up the phone for a quick call. I woke her often, as she snoozed on the couch, my dad watching one of his endless sporting events or crime scene shows beside her. Sometimes our calls were brief---literally a hi and a bye---but on other nights, we talked and laughed until my husband's eye-rolling became impossible to ignore. I told her what I had made for dinner that night, we talked about my upcoming trips home to Rochester repeatedly, she asked about my husband and friends. There was not much we didn’t cover during those calls. The last time I talked to my mom was on February 13, 2012. It was late, and I remember the fleeting thought: I’ll just call her tomorrow. I’m so glad I didn’t listen to myself. I told her about the lamb chops I was making for Valentine’s Day dinner the following night, and I asked if she and my dad had any special plans. I distinctly remember her laugh in response.

I sat in the hospital just days after that phone call, while my mom lay in a coma next to me, incredulous that I couldn’t talk to her about it all. And last week, as we marked the 1 year anniversary of my mom’s death, I kept returning to the impossibility of not talking to her in a year. I think sometimes of those nights I didn’t call her, of the times I was too busy, or too tired, or just didn’t prioritize it, and wish for a do-over. I know exactly what I would say.

I would tell her, first and foremost, about the babies. I would update her on my nephew, about how he makes us laugh, about how naughty he can be, about how---even though he still sucks his thumb and takes his blanket everywhere---he’s no longer a baby. I would tell her that he points to the picture of her in his room, knowing that it’s Mimi. I would tell her about my niece, who is the spitting image of my mom at that age; about how beautiful she is, but how touch and go those first few months were for my sister and brother-in-law, what with a colicky newborn and an active 2 year-old. I would laugh, telling my mom that despite our best efforts to help my sister and her brood, we don’t come close to filling her shoes. I would tell her that “Mimi’s pool” is still Rachael’s favorite, and about all the new babies who have joined our family---extended or otherwise---in the last year.

I would fill 3 days of conversation, telling her about the meaningless details of my life that no one but she ever really cared about.  About the new car my husband and I bought this past summer---and how I sat at the dealership with tears in my eyes as we traded in our old model, realizing once again that I couldn’t share my news with her; about the bed frame I’ve had my eye on at Pottery Barn and the new rug that looked great online, but sheds incessantly; about the movies I’ve seen and the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy; about new recipes I’ve tried and plants I’ve killed.

I would complain about every little annoyance from the past year. I would wait for her to tell me to shut up, and then complain some more.

I would tell her about the recent stresses of my job---a new manager and lots of travel---but how I really, really like what I do. I would also tell her of my husband’s new job, how his hard work has finally started to pay off. I know how proud she would be of us both.

I would tell her that I’m experimenting with acupuncture and a gluten-free diet, all the while expecting an immediate, gut-busting laugh and an exclamation of, “Are you nuts?!”

I would tell her that she was right about most things, but especially about how much we would miss her when she was gone.

And, finally, I would reassure her, that despite the heartache and the tears, that we were all ok. I would tell her that this is going to be the year of more laughs than tears, of my sister’s wedding, and maybe, even, more babies.

I don't quite know what I believe when it comes to life and death, but I suppose she might already know all of this. We're taking her with us on our new adventures, after all. But, my god, how I miss our talks.

XXVII. Provence

The director of the ACCP program is a bird-thin woman in her late 40s named Helen. (Hélène, she’ll tell you.) She moved from California to Aix twenty years ago and seems to think that this makes her French---she speaks with an exaggerated accent and prances around the school gardens with younger men in tight jeans and leather jackets, showing them off to the students in a see-I-told-you-I’m-still-desirable kind of way. We stare at her from the tables under the trees during breaks and gossip about how absurd and scripted she is, bonding over our shared dislike of her.

Even though my initial inclination is to dislike her, I haven’t had any one-on-one interactions with her until about a month into my stay in Aix. My friends who feel comfortable and welcome in their homestays urge me to talk to Helen about the problems I’m having living with Agnès, so I have a meeting with her one morning before classes start to explain the situation and see what options there are for me.

Helen tells me that it is my own fault. Olivia, she says in French, you have une certaine rigidité où il devrait être du douceur. A certain rigidity where there should be sweetness.

I am silent for the next five minutes as she continues talking. I nod when she wants me to nod, and I stand up to leave without saying a word when Helen indicates the meeting is over. I have to get to my next class on French culture, which Helen is teaching that day.

We talk a lot about cultural barriers in class, the different situations that Americans might find impolite or weird but in France are perfectly normal. Today, Helen chalks up all our perceived French rudeness to cultural differences---what we see as rudeness is just their way of being direct and honest. I raise my hand and add in my own exemption to Helen’s rule.

Sometimes, I say, looking her right in the eye, people are just assholes.